This week we pay our respect to one of the most celebrated and accomplished partnerships, the brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll trace their beginnings as Orbital back to the late 1980’s in Sevenoaks, England. The brothers grew up listening to second generation punk (Crass, Dead Kennedys, Crucifix…), mutant-electro (Severed Heads, Hula, Adrian Sherwood…) and early Hip Hop (Phil went over to New York in the mid-eighties in order to ‘find’ Hip Hop). By 1988 Paul had contributed two electro pieces to FFrr’s “House Sound Of London Volume 4″ by the name of ‘D.S.Building Contractors’, but it wasn’t  Read more...

Long, deep and emotional, almost 14 minutes of pure space, acid and microscopic changes. With minimal instruments a maximum output was created by the three Frenchman : Laurent Garnier, Shazz (Didier Delesalle) and Ludovic Navarre. ‘Acid Eiffel’ is created with so much devotion and preciseness, you can listen to the track over a thousend times and keep discovering new sounds and new changes, simply incredible if you ask me! In the early 90’s Laurent Garnier was one of the first artists that brought the ‘Detroit’ sound to the legendary ‘Read more...

This weeks Sunday Classic features the track that started a revolution back in 1992 and rigorously changed what we used to call Trance into Techno. This phenomenon became an instant international hit, deserving to be heard by everybody on this planet who call theirselves ‘Techno’. ‘Der Klang Der Familie’ was originally released on Tresor but ‘taken’ by Derrick May to recut the track in Detroit for his legendary label Transmat. The ‘Transmat’ release was without permission, which caused a friction between Detroit an Berlin. We’ll I leave it up to you to form your opininon about this action… Anyway, Sven Rohrig, an essential alumni member of Berli  Read more...

Today’s Sunday Classic is clearly one of the most recognisable and widely accepted trance anthems in history..The man behind the track is Belgian producer Dirk Dierickx. At the age of 18 Dirk ( M.I.K.E ) Dierickx handed his first demo tape to the Antwerp record company USA Import Music and released his first record as ‘Vision Act’. In 1996 he signed with Lightning Records (Bonzai Records) where he worked with artists like Yves DeRuyter, Marco Bailey and Ian van Dhal. Then in 1998 the moment came when he conquered the world with his masterpiece ‘Universal Nation’ under his alias ‘Push’. The sophisticated sounds, the killer melody a  Read more...

Brian Dougans and Gary Cobain met in Manchester in 1988 where they started exploring electronic music, working in clubs and alongside many well known and respected artists and DJs. Brian’s work incorporated a project for the Stakker Graphics company where he created the top 20 hit Stakker Humanoid, accompanied by a video that Gary worked on. Then in 1992 the guys released their masterpiece ‘Papua New Guinea’ as ‘The Future Sound of London’ wich first appeared on the independent UK label ‘Jumping and Pumping’. The breakbeat with ambient influences just caught the ear, it sounded fresh, different and  Read more...

Today it is Simon Slater’s turn to feature the Sunday Classic. His masterpiece ‘Passion’, released under the alias ‘Gat Decor’, originally came out on Effective Records in 1992 before eventually making it into the UK charts peaking at No.29. This 12 contained the original instrumental version and on the flip the Darren Emerson remix. ( incidentally it was Darren’s very first remix ) ‘Passion’ was an immediate sensation in the underground danceclubs and is one of the first tracks to be referred as ‘progressive house’, setting the template for a whole new era in electronic music. With it’s dominating bassline, distinctive piano rif  Read more...

This edition of Sunday classics features one of the greatest Techno tracks, if not the greatest. It is probably one of the most stunning productions within any kind of electronic music ever, if you ask me. The cause of the massive popularity of this alltime classic is perhaps that DJ Rolando blended the flavours of Disco, House and Detroit together into something nearly every DJ could play and all audiences would enjoy. DJ Rolando grew up in the Southwest Detroit Latino community, where he was heavily influenced by the music and style of mixing that was being spun on local radio stations by the likes of Jeff Mills, Alan Oldham and the legendary Electifying Mojo. Rolando soon took to DJ-ing himself, beginning with spinning his hip-hop and freestyle records at local gigs. This soon gained t  Read more...

Charly says always tell your mummy before you run off somewhere are the lyrics that will probably haunt many parents forever.. This was the sample that Liam Howlett used in the massive breakthrough track for his band the Prodigy. It was August ‘91 when Liam returned from clubbing early in the morning and started writing some material. (He was on his best while he was still in the party-vibe). Then the idea popped up to use the lyrics of ‘Charly’, these lyrics were taken from an informational 70’s children cartoon called Charly says. These cartoons were a government warning to young kids not to play with matches and that kind of stuff. “I thought it was so hilarious”, Liam says. “It was the bollocks. I thought that if I put that to a really hard so  Read more...

This weeks Sunday Classic features ‘Cafe del Mar’. The masterminds behind this killer dance anthem are Paul Schmitz-Moormann (aka Paul M/Kid Paul) and Harald Bluechel (Cosmic Baby) who released it under the Energy 52 pseudonym. Paul and Harald met in the summer of ‘89 in a club where Paul played his first DJ sets. They became close friends, sharing their visons, love and enthousiasm for the emerging Techno House sound. Their favorite spot to chill out was the bar ‘Cafe del Mar’ in Ibiza, where they spent the eveninghours listening to great music and socialising with inspiring people. When Paul returned from an Ibiza-va  Read more...